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There Is A Massive Trucker Shortage Causing Supply Chain Disruptions And High Inflation

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If you’ve shopped at a supermarket lately, you would have noticed all of the bare shelves. There is no definitive timeline for the delivery of the new car you excitedly put a down payment on months ago. Companies are losing business, as they aren’t receiving the stock of goods and components needed to make their products. 

These issues are emblematic of the disruption of the supply chain. President Joe Biden pressed the ports to work around the clock to unpack containers, get them off the docks and send them out to the public. It helped, somewhat. 

There is a bigger issue that hasn’t been addressed. We can receive all the goods from China and around the world, but if there are not enough truckers to deliver them to stores, we will continue to see empty shelves for a long time.

Truck drivers move around 71% of the U.S. economy's products across the country. One of the biggest challenges that no one seems to want to talk about is that there is a massive shortage of truckers. The industry has lost 6% of its workers since the pandemic began and struggles to recruit. The industry needs at least 80,000 new truckers, U.S. Xpress, one of the nation's largest truckload carriers, says. The American Trucking Associations reported that this sector is headed for a shortage of 160,000 drivers by 2030, and the need for one million new drivers over the next 10 years.

Even before the pandemic, long-haul driver turnover averaged 94% annualized. With the additional challenges imposed by the virus outbreaks, some companies see attrition up to 150%. For U.S. Xpress, the fifth-largest asset-based truckload carrier in North America, a fresh approach to recruiting was required to attract candidates. 

There are several reasons why this is happening. The Great Resignation trend and the waves of Covid-19, delta and omicron variants, contributed to a large number of truckers leaving the profession. Although a trucker could earn up to about $100,000 per year, it's a grueling way to make a living. You're on the road most of your life. If you have a family, you don’t see them for months at a time. Stopping at small rest stations, local diners and low quality motels leave the driver susceptible to catching Covid-19. The trucker is then stuck in some small town in the middle of the country, far away from family and friends to help take care of them, which wasn’t in the initial job description. Many truckers also bear the burden of gas, insurance and maintenance costs, which reduces their take-home pay.

Since the job market is offering about 11 million opportunities, many truckers decided to leave the industry and pivot to something new. They’ve gone into construction, as the real estate market is hot, manufacturing, warehouse and fulfillment centers or picked up a new trade. 

The problem in the U.S. isn’t just the empty shelves, due in large part to the shortage of experienced truckers, with fewer goods, the prices go up. We’ve seen the highest, fastest growth of inflation in decades. At this point, we’ve all looked at the bill for a meal and were shocked at the prices. If nothing is done about increasing the amount of truckers, no matter how much stuff is imported, they can’t be delivered and prices and inflation will continue to rage unabatedly.

U.S. Xpress, a major trucking enterprise, is working on a solution. It is modernizing its recruiting practices, including leveraging conversational artificial intelligence technology for hiring during the driver shortage. It has also opened up its recruiting team to field calls of perspective truckers around the clock.

In such a competitive industry, “You have to find ways to think differently,” said Jacob Kramer, vice president of talent acquisition at U.S. Xpress. “To begin with, we challenged everything. The entire candidate journey was evaluated. We applied our extremely talented people and implemented technology that automated and optimized every touch point. We also activated partners who shared our vision and goals,” Kramer added.

The company pioneered two proprietary pieces of technology. “One uses advertising data points to get the right message in front of the right driver at the right time. The other creates custom, trackable landing pages for every ad and message with near-instant load time, even when cell service is slow.”

This plan also includes reaching out to underrepresented people in the trucking space, including Hispanic and military communities. The company created a full-funnel language approach that included “not just Spanish advertising, but Spanish language applications and Spanish-speaking recruiters and support staff—a 360-degree approach to truly make Hispanic drivers feel welcome and needed.” 

The trucking giant is making headway. The company recently broke four records for experienced hires, trending 40% above Q4 ‘20 vs Q4 ’21, as well as beating year-over-year results for such hires, due to better candidate recruitment technology and practices.

Despite the success, the industry as a whole has a problem. We all want experienced drivers, for obvious safety reasons. It's an expensive and time-consuming process to teach someone from scratch how to drive an 18 wheeler through treacherous ice, snow and inclement weather.

In Canada, the government partnered with the business sector to help train new truckers. Biden’s administration would benefit by looking into this type of relationship to build a pipeline of truckers for the future. A sizable sum of funds was allocated toward the trucking industry to help ameliorate these problems in Biden’s infrastructure program, but it hasn’t been passed, as of this time.

Some may say, we should turn to autonomous trucks as an alternative. Maybe in five to 10 years, as most Americans would feel terrorized to see a monstrously large truck barreling down the highway without a human being behind the wheel. Action must be taken soon; otherwise, high prices and inflation will continue to eat into our pocketbooks.

Amanda Thompson, chief people officer at U.S. Xpress, remains optimistic. She believes that hiring growth is achievable if you are willing to question the status quo and truly innovate your approach. Listen to what your target audiences want and provide it. Listen to what your data is telling you and act on it—even if you have to invent the technologies to do it. Identify audiences that you’re traditionally overlooking and make a concerted effort to connect with them.

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